Posts tagged with "New Lab":

Meet the incubators and accelerators producing the new guard of design and architecture start-ups. This is part of a series profiling incubators and accelerators from our April 2018 Technology issue.
Located in a former shipbuilding space at the Brooklyn Navy Yard,New Lab is an 84,000-square-foot collaborative tech hub dedicated to entrepreneurs working on scalable technologies and products. New Lab supports companies in nine disciplines: robotics, AI, urban tech, the built environment, energy, connected devices, additive tech, life sciences, and nanotechnology. Members benefit from access to a dizzying array of fabrication labs, including 3-D printing, woodworking, casting, CNC milling, and electronics, along with access to free software, including Autodesk and SolidWorks. But it’s also important to note that New Lab’s location in New York City is part of the draw, as the city itself is offered as an ideal laboratory to test the technologies in real-life urban conditions.
The flagship tech hub opened in 2016 and was founded to provide a supportive center for those companies working at the forefront of technology and human experience and to ensure that they have a reason to stay in the city. David Belt, New Lab’s co-founder and CEO, is careful to stress that the lab is not an incubator—that is, it is not dedicated to helping companies at the beginning of their research or product-development cycles, but rather those that have concrete products and built technologies and are ready to take the next step.
Through a formalized arm of the company called New Lab Ventures—a $50 million venture fund—the lab itself invests in some of its member companies and currently has investments in 14 of them; the lab also connects members to the world’s leading venture funds. And a joint program called the Urban Tech Hub, in partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), allows New Lab to support companies that strive to make a more livable, resilient city through their technologies and products. Additionally, the lab has other private-public partnerships in the works and a global partner network with Barcelona, Spain, and Copenhagen, Denmark, that offers other opportunities to members. New Lab currently has 103 member companies, with 600 individuals working at the space. Competition for entry is steep—just 15 percent of applicants are accepted.

The founders see potential for their technology to be crucial for urban developers, autonomous vehicles, public transportation, and infrastructure. It allows for real-time, constantly updated 3-D mapping of cities.

First built in 1902 for ship construction, the 250,000-square-foot "Building 128" may be back at the cutting edge of industry. The enormous structure will host New Lab, a platform and community for technology-focused entrepreneurs.
Yesterday, New York City officials, Brooklyn Navy Yard President & CEO David Ehrenberg, and New Lab founders David Belt and Scott Cohen gathered to inaugurate the new space. The scale of the New Lab is large, both in terms of raw numbers and the work being done: 50 companies and 350 workers will share 84,000 square feet of offices, laboratories, and other industrial facilities. The project is part of a major push to revitalize the Brooklyn Navy Yard: the City aims to create 15,000 jobs there by 2020. For example, WeWork recently announced it would anchor a major new 675,000-square-foot coworking office building dubbed Dock 72.
What can tech entrepreneurs find in New Lab? Studios range from 300 to 8,000 square feet and amenities include a cafe, kitchen, lounge, 4,500-square-foot event space, and workshops of every variety—CNC milling machines, metal and wood shops, an electronics lab for making circuits, a spray booth, laser cutters, and a 3D printing lab. “Our vision is that New Lab will be a supportive and collaborative working environment for designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs—people trying to accomplish really hard things—not in Silicon Valley or at MIT but right here in Brooklyn,” said Cohen in a press release.
Companies in New Lab's member directory work in multiple fields of design, including robotics, nano tech, artificial intelligence, wearables, interactive architecture, and urban tech. In terms of the latter category, New Lab is teaming up with the NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)’s Urban Tech NYC program to create a special residency program for urban technology entrepreneurs. "Reserved for growth-stage companies tackling today’s most pressing urban challenges, this program...offers high-touch engagement with domain experts and peer communities," the New Lab website says.
As for the space itself, its design was a group effort: "Working alongside its sister management company, DBI, with Marvel Architects as the architect of record, Macro Sea—led by Belt, Design Director Nicko Elliott, and their small team—fostered the project from the idea’s inception down to prototyping and building custom furniture for the space," New Lab said in a press release. While the ribbon was cut yesterday, the facility—which has been in the works since 2011—will open in earnest this September. Prospective entrepreneurs can apply for New Lab residency here.